


alive.

by volti



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: 707 Route Spoilers, Huddling For Warmth, Minor Spoilers, Other, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 16:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8453527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volti/pseuds/volti
Summary: You couldn't afford to take a jab at how it was seemingly okay for you spill all your dreams while his were still vacuum-sealed.
Because someone had to write the obligatory "there's only one bed in this abandoned cabin so we're gonna have to share it" fic. [WARNING: Minor spoilers up to Day 10 of 707's Route!]





	

**Author's Note:**

> I hate everything including myself, I spent five or six hours finishing this game last night. Who am I. What is my life. What have I become.

All things considered, this was probably no different from what happened, and yet what should have happened, when you were still at Rika's apartment. A little less than Zen's expectations, a little more than Seven's.

No, Luciel—

No, _Saeyoung._ He was Saeyoung. He always was, but now he actually let himself be.

He was tapping away at the equipment he'd brought with him, huddled in the corner of the cabin he'd found. If it weren't for the electricity and the decent-looking furniture, you would have figured that the place was abandoned. How the hell had he found the place, anyway?

(Maybe it was better if you didn't ask. You had a whole lifetime to figure Saeyoung out, and he had a whole lifetime to let you.)

Still, there was something different in the air, equal parts comfort and desperation where there would have been frigid isolation before. It was easier to settle next to him lean against his shoulder as he worked, the robot cat he'd constructed (and destroyed, and reconstructed) nestled in your lap as if it were a real pet. You might have even gone so far as to say that the whole thing was familial. Exactly what he was looking for, and you too, to a degree.

Except for Saeran.

"We're gonna find him, you know," you murmured, coaxing a hand away from his keyboard and covering it with your own. (Was it warm from all the work, or from the anticipation of touching you like this? Was he used to typing one-handed from all the times he practically drowned himself in junk food?) "They can't have gone far."

"'M working on it," was his reply, soft and short and nowhere near sounding like he needed to shove you off for his own good. In fact, he sounded kind of tired, and with good reason—the poor guy had to be drained of almost everything physical and emotional by now.

You nodded to your phone, charging in a nearby outlet. "Can I put on some music?"

"Don't." Saeyoung stiffened, and then gave your hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm used to working quietly, that's all." If he was worried about how he'd treated you before—if he was worried that he'd triggered some reminder that froze you with fear—then maybe he was trying to make up for it. The thought that he might still be beating himself up for it made your heart sink, and honestly, it wasn't as though you couldn't empathize.

He could find that out later, when this was over and done with. When calmness was a luxury, and not a coping method.

"Okay," you told him. Truth be told, there was a part of you that wanted to make the most of the solitude, take the edge off your objective if only for the sake of hope. You remembered reading a lot of books, and seeing a lot of pictures, of couples dancing in their apartments in the middle of the night, stepping in too-large socks and boxer shorts, oversized sweaters and the aroma of plucked guitars and tea that had long since cooled. And you'd be lying if you said you didn't want to try it for yourself someday, do it over again and again now that you could put a face to the shadows in your own thoughts.

Well, you had the odd hours of the night on your side, anyway. You supposed the rest would come some other time—with a little less _strike while the iron is hot_ , a little more _I love you_.

Instead, while the thought still flickered in your mind, you pressed a hand to his back, rubbing gentle circles before you coaxed him out of his sweater.

"D'you want to wear it?" he offered; his eyelids hung heavy, but he still managed a smile, more towards the laptop screen than towards you.

You shook your head and lay the sweater down; it was large enough to spread across your lap and his, and warm enough, too. "Just want to feel you." And sure, you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks when you spoke, but it was easier to lose yourself in the waffle-knit texture of his shirt, rough and yet soft under your palm. You wouldn't have put it past him to purr at the feeling. He didn't—instead, he slumped forward as if just barely holding his head up—but maybe a part of you wished he would. "Do you think we'll be like this when we get out of here?"

"Can't say..." He said it like he could, but didn't want to. Was holding something back for your sake. (Hadn't he done that enough already?) 

But you didn't push him; you only kept up the rhythm of your hand, sometimes pressing a little harder in between his shoulder blades. "I do," you admitted. "Sometimes."

Saeyoung's typing stopped. Resumed. Slowly, too slowly. "Tell me about it?"

You couldn't afford to take a jab at how it was seemingly okay for you spill all your dreams while his were still vacuum-sealed. "I think..." You had to start slowly. Couldn't overwhelm him. (As if he hadn't overwhelmed you in ten days.) "I think I just want to live with you and your brother when everything settles down, if he doesn't mind it. I go back to work after all this. You find something that makes you happy, even if it means staying at home and minding everything from a distance—"

Saeyoung grinned. "So I'm the homemaker and you're the breadwinner?"

You gave his shoulder a flick. "You've probably earned so much that my job is just something to keep me busy. A formality, got it?"

"A formality..." A thoughtful hum. "Keep going?"

With a roll of your eyes, you continued, nails catching on the fabric of his shirt when you settled for scratching instead. "I think about everything finally going silent. When the day's been loud, and with all of this"—you gestured toward the laptop—"I think the silence is something we need. I want to dance in it with you."

For a while, Saeyoung didn't speak. His lips were moving, like he was mouthing the data to himself to check for mistakes, and God, that probably sounded so stupid. Dance in the silence with him? Who _said_ that? You wish you could've just sealed up your words, too—maybe Saeyoung had the right idea about this stuff.

Except he sighed, as if relaxed, and said, "Then, d'you know how to waltz?"

You snorted—"No way"—and settled for kneeling behind him, fingers splayed at the small of his back. It wasn't worth trying to decipher the words on the screen for the time. It was only worth quieting his mind when his body went rigid from too much thought, when the minutes turned into hours and you could tell, without seeing his face, that he could barely keep his eyes open. He didn't need to know that you didn't know how to quiet yours any other way. Or that you wished you could vacuum-seal tears.

"We should go to sleep," you murmured as the computer clock turned over to 2 a.m. "We're going to need it."

"You take first shift," Saeyoung replied, reaching out a hand to grope aimlessly on the floor—probably muscle memory from keeping a bag of chips beside him at all times. "I'll keep going. And there's only one bed besides."

"I don't mind."

Okay, so maybe you shouldn't have blurted it out like that, even at a mumble. Instantly, you hoped he wouldn't turn around and gawk at you.

He did turn, but he eyed you with no words, only curiosity—or maybe that was just the light of the laptop screen—glinting off the lens of his glasses. "There's only one bed," he repeated, a little less resistant, as if asking permission instead of arguing a point.

You nodded, and squeezed his shoulders because it was better than picking at your nails. "I don't mind." You weren't trying to persuade or pressure him—it was just more calming to curl your fingers into the fabric of his shirt, slide down to take his hands in yours. It took him away from his work, tossed any anxiety to the wayside, anchored you both in a world that belonged only to you. And when he tugged one hand away, fingertips tickling your palm, it was only to enter two pieces of data, and shut the computer down.

"Then, take me to bed," Saeyoung whispered, like he should have swept you off your feet and bared you to him right then and there. Still, it was his hands on you this time, helping you to your feet, ghosting over your shoulders, pulling the covers down and nudging you underneath them. You barely had the time to be shy about it, or to bicker over taking the floor for the sake of common courtesy. But then, over the past few days, you barely had the time to be anything about _anything_. 

"Is this okay?" His legs were tangling with yours, and he was pulling you close, pressing your ear to his chest with his palm against the back of your head. Like he was still giving you the chance to be something now, and caging you in all the same.

"You're alive," you murmured, and in a mix of hesitation and sudden, newfound bravery, you fingers found their way to the hem of his shirt. Slipped under. Felt the ridge of his hipbone and the warmth of his skin. "Don't you know that?"

He clutched you a little tighter, shivered at the graze of your nails against the small of his back, up his spine. "I can feel you," he said, "so I'm alive. It hurts"—he drew in a sharp breath when your nails bit into his shoulders—"so I'm alive."

Your breath hitched in your throat, and you couldn't do much more than pull your hands toward his front, skim them along his torso, feel his life. "You're fighting," you mumbled, muffled by his clothing. "So you're alive."

His arms tightened around you, and you lived it. He burned under your touch, and you lived it. "You too?"

"Yeah." Everything electrified you, down to the waffle-knit against your cheek, the denim scratching at your ankles. There were no oversized socks or sweaters, no guitars, and the only aroma was the residual scent of your shower gel in the crook of his neck and the silence of soundproof windows. There was no picture-perfect book scene, except maybe in the relief that Saeyoung fell first, heavy and limp all at once. "Me too," you told him, overlapped by a light snore.

There was Saeran; there was hope. There was Saeyoung; there was life.

There was almost perfection at half-past two. 

That was all right.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/omnistruck) and a [Tumblr](http://voltisubito.tumblr.com) if you want to follow for more suffering and shenanigans!


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